I Choose to Rebel

What do you get when you’ve been a good, obedient daughter for the whole twenty-five years of your life?

You get slapped in the face, that’s what. That’s exactly what happened to me last Friday, when I refused to listen to another long and mundane advices (i.e: rules and obligation as a grand-daughter) from my grand father, which had been forced upon my head for me to listen to since I was a child.

Just name it and I can guarantee that I got it all; from stupid things like being forbidden to have a boyfriend who tattooed or pierced his skin, or getting a future husband who was filthy rich and guaranteed unlimited financial security (apparently that’s all a girl ever needs from a man), to touchy issues like racial prejudice based on the color of my boyfriend’s skin, and onto a more outrageous issues of my prerogative as a woman in which I was told that being a girl it was a must that I had to have children, because ‘that is what a woman is destined to do’. Riiiight.

Of course I never took anything seriously – I figured by the time I actually get married he’d be long gone by then.Not that I wish for it, of course.

Nevertheless, my relationship with my grandparents, particularly my grand father, was of a normal one – when I was studying overseas, I sent him letters and gave him a call every now and then for a little chit-chat. Whenever there was a family gathering, I used to come up to him and say hi, and he was very affectionate to me as well.

But that was when I was the naive, obedient girl who was kept on a leash and being led around like a dog.

The problem started to arise around three months ago when out of the blue, my grand father instructed my mother so that I should get proposed by my boyfriend. For what reason, I couldn’t have the slightest clue.

What happened next was that my boyfriend was asked to come around to the shop (which my mother owned and practically lived in) by my mother’s business partner – who had no familial relation whatsoever – to have a little talk about having his parents to come over and propose me. My mother claimed she knew nothing about it.

Even though my boyfriend was previously advised to hide this from me, of course he told me about it anyway because he didn’t like keeping anything back from me, and when I found out what happened, I was shocked to bits and went absolutely livid, because that was not the way how I wanted myself to be proposed.

First of all, my boyfriend and I are working on establishing our own business, so our main cash and incomes are invested in it because we have planned this ever since we started going out together, due to the fact that we both hated the idea of working for someone else.

Secondly, whatever is left from our income is allocated to invest in a house for ourselves, which is the first priority after saving up for our own wedding – another future expenditure to think about.

Thirdly, I detest the idea of getting wedded off from the expenses of someone elses, especially my parents or his. I have a principle that since I am old enough to earn my own money, not to mention the amount that my parents had to shed for my overseas education, it makes sense that I should be able to stand up on my own two feet and stop being dependent on them, money-wise and all.

Besides, I don’t want my wedding to be everyone’s wedding, because that’s what happens when you let your parents pay for your wedding cost – you have to involve them and go along with their rules; it’s all about their friends and relatives and their choice of places, food and decoration and what elses. This places the control of things on them, and you have no choice but to agree, even if it puts off the reason why you want to have a wedding ceremony in the first place. This is why I chose to fund my own wedding, no matter how long it takes me to get there, at least I get to do it my way. Even if it was a gift, I refuse to take it.

Did my grand father knew anything about this? Of course not. He never bothered to ask and we never got the chance to tell him because the occasion never arise. I never really thought that marriage was still so sacred for him, after all that happened to his children. As far as I knew, none of my grand father’s children, including my mother, are in happily married conditions. Each of them suffered in their own ways, as the old saying goes, ‘Every happy family is alike, but every unhappy family is always different.’

Briefly speaking, my mother hasn’t been living at home for four years. My oldest auntie is stuck with a lazy husband who lives off her, and my younger auntie and her family are still living at my grandparents house so every little thing that they do are always watched and judged by my grand father, and the youngest child, my uncle, who was nearing forty, was still enjoying his life as a single bachelor who lives with his parents.

And I won’t even go into details about how fucked up it was that none of my parents or my grandparents even bother to talk it face-to-face with either me or my boyfriend themselves. Being the grown-ups they are, I really thought they would know what the word ‘respect’ meant. How can they demand us to respect them when they don’t even respect other people, regardless of what age they are?

Did they even bother asking about our plans for the future? No, they just jumped into conclusions and made assumptions of their own.

So that Friday, when I saw the look on my grand father’s irate face as he beckoned me with his hands (like I was a five year old) to come over, I decided; No more.

No more to being the obedient daughter who tries to please everyone and runs her life based on what others want, instead of what I want.

No more of this ‘because we have raised you and do all the things parents are supposed to do, you are obliged to make us happy by agreeing to live your life they way we want it to.’

No more family gatherings where everyone can gossip behind each other backs and interventing the personal lives of others, and all is done in the name of family.

No more parents trying to live their lives through their children because they were too selfish and ignorant to want to give any freedom for their children to be themselves.

They can disown me if they want – I’d rather choose my freedom.

Yes, I’m that selfish.